Roger Taylor: Well, we've been sort of thinking about touring for years. After Freddie's death the first thought was no, don't want to do it. It doesn't feel right and then we sort of considered doing it with various people but it didn't work out and Brian and I didn't feel quite happy about it. We felt it had to be right and I suppose, age rushing on and everything. But then actually Brian did some work with Paul Rodgers ...

Brian May: We did this anniversary gig for Fender. The 50th Anniversary of the Stratocaster and I found myself on stage with him playing "Alright Now" and it just seemed so incredibly easy and the chemistry seemed so great, it was such enormous fun. We came off stage and sort of looked at each other and thought, mmm, that worked incredibly well. There is something going on here and it really came from there. I got on the phone to Roger and said you should really have look at what we just did. I sent him the video and Roger felt the same way.

Roger Taylor: Then we both worked with him at the British Hall of Fame TV thing and it all just sort of all clicked. It all seemed very easy and it sounded wonderful. It's not somebody trying to be Freddie. It's somebody that is trying to take it somewhere else in his own direction. A lot of our music is blues based and Paul really is really a very soulful, bluesy singer and we just thought that was a really good direction to go in.

Paul Rodgers: We did a couple of songs together - 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are The Champions' and it just rocked so good and it just felt so amazing and everyone just looked at each other and said 'well, let's take it on the road' and so here we are. It's gone from that, from really just a gut feeling that this feels good, let's do something, all the way to a pretty major tour. It's very exciting!

Brian May: He interprets the way he feels, the man's a poet. He's a blues singer, a rock singer of the finest quality, he's nobody's fool. He doesn't want to imitate anybody, why should he, he's Paul Rodgers, who really is one of the people who influenced all the singers who are out there at the moment.

Roger Taylor: In fact the first time I actually saw them was when Brian and I were in a band called Smile before Queen and we were both playing. In fact they were below us on the bill believe it or not, and we were a student band! For some odd reason they were first on and I remember thinking, Jesus, the singer … not only does he sing amazingly well, but he does all these things with the mike stand, and he moves like a snake, like a sort of cobra. And of course then they brought out a record, they had a lot of hits. Some great records. We used to spend a lot of time listening to Free.

Brian May: Paul Rodgers was a hero of Freddie's and a hero of ours in the days when we were starting. You know the "Fire and Water" album from Free was one of our bibles when we were starting off. So suddenly this person here (points to himself) went through a complete change, I just, suddenly thought yeah, we could do this. We could do one more kind of tour and the songs would mean something new. This would not be like re-hashing, like trying to pretend Freddie is still around. Suddenly we can re-interpret these songs with someone who understands what he's about, someone who relates to us and Paul Rodgers is the guy. I mean it's just… suddenly it felt right.

Paul Rodgers: I feel excited. I feel challenged. It is a challenging thing to do. They have fantastic variety of music and they have some songs that are really very suitable for my voice and songs that I can take to a slightly different place. It is a challenge that I am looking forward to.

Roger Taylor: We've been doing a lot of one-off's and sort of charity things and they are quite, sort of frustrating because you do a bit of work and rehearse up a bit, but not really properly a